


Break Away

by foundCarcosa



Category: Fable (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-04
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 04:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/451160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not everything is fair in either love or war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break Away

“Not even pyjamas?” Jasper had asked incredulously when Walter hurried them out of the castle that cloudy night, but Niall cared not for the trappings of his former life. He left everything behind without a glance backwards, and gladly shucked the princely garb for dwellers’ rags — all except for the shred of ribbon.

“I’ll tie this one around your wrist, you see,” she’d whispered, tying, a happy lilt lifting her words and making them sing. “And you tie this one around mine. They’re cut from the same spool. Even though the ribbon was clipped, the bond is never severed.” She joined the ends of the cut ribbon, and where they joined the ribbed pattern seemed to fuse seamlessly — giving the appearance of having never been cut.

She’d kissed him soundly on the nose then, giggling when the inevitable flush bloomed indignantly over Niall’s cheeks. “Come on. Let’s go see what that silly dog of yours is up to now.”

The smiles had been wiped off their faces when they heard Logan’s strident voice, shooing the dog away as if he were a mangy cur. But with Elise’s hand clasped firmly in his and her ribbon tied securely around his wrist, he was sure he could weather Logan’s madness for another day.

Walter glances over, catching movement in the corner of his eye. Niall’s fingers glide over a scrap of burgundy ribbon, his gaze hooded and unfocused.

“Hey. What’s that there?” he asks, trying to be as casual as possible.

Niall starts, casting a furtive look at Walter whilst shaking his sleeve over the ribbon. “Eh, nothing. Just… mm. Nothing.”  
Walter chuckles, tamps the embers of the fire, and rolls over onto his pallet.  
“Rest up, lad. We’ve got a long way to go.” 

Niall sleeps, but he doesn’t rest. He can hear Elise’s laughter, feel her warm skin beneath remembering fingers, but he can’t bring it into this dark new reality with him. He can only hope she waits.

Soon enough, he brings himself to admit that he knows she won’t.

It’s a less recognisable prince that returns to Bowerstone some weeks later, and he manages not to incur any suspicious glances as he skulks about in his well-worn dweller garb. His dog pads docilely beside him at first, then woofs and takes off after some spooked critter.  
Niall sighs impatiently and follows at a much slower pace, glancing up at the ivy-edged, crumbling building looming over him.  
He squints. It’s the orphanage, the orphanage and the shelter, he does recognise it — but barely. It hadn’t been so dilapidated before.

“I’m sorry,” he hears a dim, strained voice say. “I’m sorry, we can’t help you today. Personal troubles, we’ve all got troubles, you know…”

Niall approaches, with a typical Hero’s curiosity. The dog lopes around, dissatisfied but thwarted by his quarry. He woofs again, seemingly echoing his master’s curiosity.  
“I’m sorry… my fiancée, she’s missing, I can’t… I’m sorry, come back tomorrow, maybe things will be… fixed…”

 _Laszlo,_ Niall recognises, a moment before he’s noticed.

“Oh… you too? I’m afraid you’ll have to seek shelter elsewhere, I have to find her…”

“Can I help?” After being prodded by Walter and Jasper, he’d finally taken to asking the question automatically. It seemed as though everyone could use a Hero’s help, even if they didn’t realise it at first.

Laszlo murmurs fretfully as he leads Niall to a crumbling building on the same block, and Niall thinks he hears the name Elise.  
But he hears the name Elise everywhere — in the whispering of trees, in the babble of brooks, in children’s rhymes. He thinks nothing of it now.

A moment before he finds Laszlo’s fiancée, all he can think is, _“I never want to see another sewer. Ever.”_

“Niall?” she gasps, and a sliver of darkness creeps into his veins and cools the coursing blood.  
His swings are wild and savage as he fights the hobbes that skitter and chatter towards them, a scowl etched into his stony visage. Beneath the fury is hurt, bitter hurt, but he can’t use that now. And beneath the bitter hurt is the knowledge that _it must be._

_Must it be? Yes. It must be._

“I’m sorry,” she tells him as he wipes the flat of his blade on his trousers, and he sees how her eyes flit towards the bloodstain left behind and then dart away with a touch of revulsion.

“Don’t be.” His voice is flat, ringing dully off the cavernous walls.  
“I’m not the Prince anymore. I have no claim to you.”

Elise’s eyes fill, but Niall is unsympathetic. “Don’t you love me at all?”

“Would it matter if I did?” The blade sheaths with a grinding metallic sound. She flinches, flinches again when he digs his heel into the exposed bone of some dead hobbe. “Even if I become _king of all Albion_ —” He says this with a pompous air and a careless flail of his hand, and she frowns minutely. “—even then, I won’t please you.  
Lasses like you don’t care for it when Heroes jump out of the storybooks and into their lives.”

“That’s absurd!” But he’s already striding away, stepping over an unconscious Laszlo. “Niall, come back here! You’re being unreasonable!”

He does stop, but only to take the ribbon in his teeth and tug viciously until the threads separate, and it snaps off his wrist. He hears her gasp, and savours the feeling of wretchedness for the barest of moments. This is not the way he would have chosen. But it is the way that is necessary.  
 _The path of a Hero is paved with bones and blood, and the tears of their beloveds. For the path of a Hero is a solitary one, his heart belonging to Albion and his work, until Albion is safe and his work is done._

“Be good to Laszlo,” he murmurs as he leaves her. _I will ensure that he is good to you._


End file.
